Newsom wrote:Yep. The neck at neutral is perfectly itemized though. Unless the heroic elite expertise neck decides to drop I'll likely save some valor to buy that piece. There is no point in capping to 3k before the patch though considering the gear is gated by reputation.

I wouldn't say "perfectly" itemized. Remember that hit/exp >> haste > mastery in general. A hit/haste or exp/haste item is perfectly itemized. Haste/mastery is decent, but if you do that in too many slots you can't hit/exp cap.

Am I the only one swimming in hit rating? I'd admit haste/exp would be slighly more appealing though, but haste/mastery is pretty damn nice.

I think most players in heroic gear are swimming in hit rating. Not so much with expertise though. Haste/mastery is certainly the best runner-up once you're capped though, so the neck is still a great pick-up. I'm going to be saving 1250 VP for it now that we get to keep VP.

So, now that we can keep our valor, what to do has gotten a bit more confusing... so assuming I finish capping valor before the patch, do I:

1) upgrade 496 tier legs IF Sha decides to give them up prior to the patch?2) save valor for the reduced cost 496 belt right after patch?3) save valor for the new rep neck (assuming we start at neutral, so can buy the neck right away?4) upgrade any of my other gear while I still can? (gun, gloves, and trinket are upgraded already)

I should be able to do 2 and 3 easily if I hold off on the others, but for a casual raider, I wonder how long it will take to gain the new rep, which is where all the valor spending will go post-patch.

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

Actually there are items at each reputation, even neutral, and getting to Friendly is (I believe) essentially just a single boss kill. It ramps up from there obviously, but you will have stuff to spend Valor on pretty quickly.

In other news, one of the trinkets they're adding in 5.2 is really weird. It snapshots your current Haste/Crit/Mastery, and gives you a buff that removes the two lower stats and adds the amount to the highest one. It's going to give some odd interactions - like crit chance being close to zero when it procs Mastery or Haste, which could affect proc rates on other abilities and items. Any toon where Crit/Haste/Mastery are about equal in value will get next to no dps increase from it.

GC made an interesting point regarding Enhancement and the mastery proc's interaction with Ascendance, which could be pretty nice, but at the same time, the loss of Crit and Haste has a negative interaction with Flurry and Unleashed Fury: Windfury.

Actually there are items at each reputation, even neutral, and getting to Friendly is (I believe) essentially just a single boss kill. It ramps up from there obviously, but you will have stuff to spend Valor on pretty quickly.

In other news, one of the trinkets they're adding in 5.2 is really weird. It snapshots your current Haste/Crit/Mastery, and gives you a buff that removes the two lower stats and adds the amount to the highest one. It's going to give some odd interactions - like crit chance being close to zero when it procs Mastery or Haste, which could affect proc rates on other abilities and items. Any toon where Crit/Haste/Mastery are about equal in value will get next to no dps increase from it.

GC made an interesting point regarding Enhancement and the mastery proc's interaction with Ascendance, which could be pretty nice, but at the same time, the loss of Crit and Haste has a negative interaction with Flurry and Unleashed Fury: Windfury.

Assuming Bashiok is correct, there must be some initial rep gained to push close to Friendly.

Regarding that odd trinket, it could also lead to capping, or effective diminishing returns, especially with something like crit, or even mastery for certain classes. Would be interesting if it was an on-use but as a proc it seems like a headache to plan for.

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

KysenMurrin wrote:No one said we could only talk about Paladins here. I've been a Shaman main for a couple of years now.

Indeed..

And I can't see how that trinket would be really useful for any of the agi classes. The trinket would hard-cap MM mastery, while gimping at the same time due to no crit, or push haste past GCD points making much of the increase useless. At best you would want it for crit, but even then the value diminishes with the huge increases. I don't even want to try to figure out what it would do for a feral.

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

In other news, one of the trinkets they're adding in 5.2 is really weird. It snapshots your current Haste/Crit/Mastery, and gives you a buff that removes the two lower stats and adds the amount to the highest one. It's going to give some odd interactions - like crit chance being close to zero when it procs Mastery or Haste, which could affect proc rates on other abilities and items. Any toon where Crit/Haste/Mastery are about equal in value will get next to no dps increase from it.

GC made an interesting point regarding Enhancement and the mastery proc's interaction with Ascendance, which could be pretty nice, but at the same time, the loss of Crit and Haste has a negative interaction with Flurry and Unleashed Fury: Windfury.

It'll only affect things like Crit from actual Crit Rating (as opposed to, say, Crit from Agility) so it'll hit subratings, but not quite as hard.It's still a pretty terrible trinket though on the surface - Bears and BM's will avoid it, Hunters may find it useful, Cat can maybe get use of the Mastery proc and a Dream build to put up some souped builds.

What I can see the trinket allowing (if they don't fix it) is for something like WW's getting the proc, getting Tigereye Brew with the higher Mastery, and then CANCELLING the trinket proc, so they get a persistent buff and then go back to Normal within a few seconds. But that's even more terrible than just being bad, because it's just shitty design to actually use the trinket.

I don't even want to try to figure out what it would do for a feral.

As Feral, you'd be going for MAstery for 200% increased Bleed damage, refresh a Rip/Rake and then probably cancel the buff right away.

KysenMurrin wrote:No one said we could only talk about Paladins here. I've been a Shaman main for a couple of years now.

Indeed..

And I can't see how that trinket would be really useful for any of the agi classes. The trinket would hard-cap MM mastery, while gimping at the same time due to no crit, or push haste past GCD points making much of the increase useless. At best you would want it for crit, but even then the value diminishes with the huge increases. I don't even want to try to figure out what it would do for a feral.

Another interesting thing. According to mmo-champion's database all three versions of the trinket use the same proc effect, meaning the only gain from LFR->normal->heroic is in the agility portion of the trinket.

Zalaria wrote:Another interesting thing. According to mmo-champion's database all three versions of the trinket use the same proc effect, meaning the only gain from LFR->normal->heroic is in the agility portion of the trinket.

Still, considering the weirdness of that proc, I'd much rather have the:

agi with haste proc, ormastery with agi proc (plus voodoo gnomes!!!!)

also should be noted that that odd one procs on being hit, so it's possible that for some classes it may not proc at all unless it factors in aoe damage and such, depending on the fight.

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

Another interesting thing. According to mmo-champion's database all three versions of the trinket use the same proc effect, meaning the only gain from LFR->normal->heroic is in the agility portion of the trinket.

While the gain from upgrading your trinket in the proc stays stagnant, your proc scales with all upgrades on any other slots, so the overall scaling is the same.